At this point, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have been in court for months, still ironing out the specifics of their divorce. And things have only gotten messier.
The two had a highly publicized beginning to their relationship when Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie fell in love on the set of their smash hit Mr. & Mrs. Smith which inspired the Donald Glover 2024 remake. Their romance was especially complicated by the fact that Pitt was still married to Jennifer Aniston at the time. They soon found a way to navigate the intense media scrutiny and had a family of their own with six kids. Their divorce, however, threw them back into never-ending chaos and turned them into everyday fodder for Hollywood gossip.
The two initially announced their separation after an altercation between Brad Pitt and his children, where he was accused of being violent toward them. While Pitt still speaks of these allegations in a dismissive manner that suggests everyone involved has since moved on, over the last couple of years, two of Brad Pitt’s daughters dropped the ‘Pitt’ surname as soon as they turned 18, which tells a different story and is a confirmation that all is certainly not well between the actor and his kids.
To add to Pitt’s woes, he has been embroiled in a never-ending battle with Jolie over their former jointly owned French winery, Château Miraval.
Jolie decided to sell her share of the winery to Russian oligarch Yuri Shefler. Brad Pitt took umbrage at that decision and promptly sued her in court for disregarding their earlier agreed-upon condition of never selling their shares without the other party’s consent. Jolie disagreed and, through her business partner’s lawyers, has since countersued, asking Pitt for $250 million, alleging that Pitt misused and embezzled the winery’s assets.
Jolie’s lawyers have alleged that Brad Pitt used the winery as his personal piggy bank. They claim that Pitt funneled the company’s funds into vanity projects that had no financial viability. Jolie’s representatives also allege that while Pitt was directing the CEO of the winery to divert the funds to his own personal ventures, they approached the CEO and confronted him about the funneling of funds to Pitt. The CEO simply responded, ‘What am I to do? He’s my boss.’
To make matters even grimmer, Tenute del Mondo — a subsidiary of the company that bought Angelina Jolie’s shares in the winery — also claimed Pitt harbored “criminal intent” in the case.
“Tenute pleads that neither [Brad] nor Chateau Miraval’s CEO had the authority to divert property to side businesses or personal expenses. Tenute also pleads criminal intent because [Brad and his company] deliberately concealed their misappropriation.
Tenute alleges that [Brad] and Mondo Bongo have misappropriated millions of dollars of Chateau Miraval funds that should have been distributed to Tenute to their side business, Miraval Studios, in which they hold a 40% interest but in which Tenute has a mere 5% interest.”
Reportedly, Brad Pitt’s representatives issued the usual run-of-the-mill celebrity response to the allegations, calling Jolie’s countersuit a ‘desperate attempt.’ Pitt’s lawyers called it just another effort to exploit the California legal system and claimed the case should be heard overseas. However, Tenute del Mondo disagreed, arguing that Pitt directed the company from California.
The case seemingly will drag on in court for a long time because the two don’t seem likely to see eye to eye on anything anytime soon.
Published: Dec 21, 2024 12:54 pm